Unofficial news and tips about Google

June 16, 2009

Artist Themes for Google Chrome

After adding themes to iGoogle and Gmail, Google intends to skin Chrome and some of the initial themes will be created by famous artists. New York Times reports that not all of the illustrators and designers contacted by Google were happy to license their works for free.

"While we don't typically offer monetary compensation for these projects, through the positive feedback that we have heard thus far we believe these projects provide a unique and exciting opportunity for artists to display their work in front of millions of people," explained a Google representative.

Some recent Chrome builds include the option to "reset to default theme", but Google doesn't offer a gallery of themes or some guidelines for creating your own theme.

Immediately after Chrome's launch, many people started to create themes for the browser by editing the default.dll file, but the file is overwritten by the automatic updater and the format was changed in the latest releases.

Note: the screenshot shows a theme created by Google. To install it, you need to install a developer version of Chrome and to enable extensions.